Very substantial investments of time, labor and capital are involved in the providing of cargo ships designed to carry deck loads of loaded containers and which containers are loaded with cargo. The purpose of both the ships and the containers is to reduce to an absolute, the minimum time that a vessel must stay berthed to be loaded and/or unloaded.
The containers are carried on the decks of the particularly fitted cargo container vessel so that the containers may be readily engaged by the loading/unloading apparatus and discharged on the dockside and so that containers located on the dockside can be readily engaged by the overhead loading/unloading apparatus and readily placed in storage on the ship's deck.
In the interest of maximum proficiency, or use of minimum time in the loading or unloading of the containers from the vessel, the containers must at all times be exposed to prevailing weather conditions, such as rain, sleet, ice, and the like, all of which fall on structures open to overhead loading and unloading members or devices.
During the attaching and detaching of the loading or unloading devices with the cargo compartments, it is necessary for manual labor to get on top of the containers and to assist in the detaching and attaching of the loading/unloading mechanism with the top portions of the cargo container.
If the weather is adverse, such as by reason of falling snow, or sleet, or hail, or water, then the longshoremen usually delay in getting on top of the containers, or the container loading mechanism, to make, or release, the appropriate necessary mechanical connections in the loading or unloading operations or else the longshoremen go very slowly about the work once they are on the top of the container or the container loading mechanism. The end result is that under present-day practices, it takes a longer time period to load or unload containers to or from a vessel during adverse weather conditions than it does to do the same during fair weather conditions and one primary fact of this is the slowness of the longshoremen in the making or in the breaking of the connection between the loading mechanism and the containers.
It is an object of my invention to provide means to employ air under pressure directed toward the top of the container so that the top of the container and the top of the loading mechanism is kept clear of falling snow, hail, sleet, and ice and the like with resultant decrease of the ship's dock time by reason of human delays resulting from inclement weather conditions during the loading and unloading operations.
Various objects, advantages and the utilities of my invention will become implicit and explicit as the description of my invention proceeds in connection with the following drawings of my invention, wherein like reference numerals will refer to like parts.